Wounded of a War
by whereistruth
Summary: Severus is left to tend to a student he orphaned-- Draco. But will they both have more support than they counted on? Last in the "Beloved" series.
1. Appearances

            He was bitter, unhappy, and who could blame him?

            Everyone in the world who had loved him, or at the very least, claimed to, was dead.  His name had been smeared over the wizarding world like so much mud, and instead of grief, what he felt was shame.

            And then, to add insult to injury, he'd been forced to come here—to Hogwarts.  

            "I don't want to be here," Draco Malfoy said, crossing his arms over his chest and casting his eyes away from his Head of House—the man who had killed his father.

             "I'm afraid you have no choice," Severus said, templing his fingers together and ignoring the roaring headache that had cropped up when Draco had been brought to him.  He'd resisted the responsibility, knowing full well that the boy wouldn't be able to think of anything but his father's demise, and who had been reponsible for it. 

            But instead of treating Severus with hate, or even distaste, the young man had thrown himself into the chair across from the Potion Master's and proceeded, in his emotional turmoil, behave like a ten-year-old. 

Taking a deep breath, Severus prepared to speak, only to be cut off by the sullen youth across from him. 

            "If you're about to apologize, you may as well can it," Draco said, his voice only fractionally holding its harshness.  "I know you're not sorry for killing him, and if you were sorry, I wouldn't be sitting here." 

            "Explain yourself." 

            "He deserved it, didn't he?"  Draco sat up straight in his chair, feeling clear for the first time since his world had come crashing down around his ears.  When all he got from Severus was a wide-eyed look of shock, he scoffed openly.  "Oh, come off it.  You think I didn't know?  I lived with the man for nearly twenty years.  He treated my mother like little more than a house elf, and me?  Well, I was to be perfect, and when perfection was lacking, I was to be disciplined."  He cast his eyes to the side then, disgusted with himself for the outburst. 

            But one more thing had to be said, the one thing that had been weighing him down more than anything, compiling the shame into something personal, something tangible. 

            "He killed my mother, did you know that?"  Draco raised his silvery eyes to Severus's and smirked, masking the pain he felt for the only family he'd really had.  "He killed my mother, and for that alone, I'd have done exactly what you did." 

            They sat in silence for long moments, Severus shocked at Draco's knowledge of his father's actions on the last night of his life, Draco grimly pleased at how easily he'd managed to strike Severus speechless. 

            Finally, at a total loss for anything else to say, Severus asked the young Slytherin if he wanted to take classes. 

            That, too, brought derision as the last living Malfoy rolled his eyes.  "It hardly stands to reason that I would very well want to take classes, since I don't want to be here at all.  But since it seems I have no choice in that particular matter, I believe I will take classes, if only to have something to do in this great, hulking prison." 

            "Then we'll put you in classes," Severus said, grasping at straws and feeling an absurd sense of relief that the boy had at least agreed to _something._

But Draco's next words swept the relief away and placed it with a sinking feeling, heartsick and helpless.

            "I shouldn't be in your class."

            And it was no more than the truth, no matter how much it stung.  Who would want to be taught by the man who had made them an orphan?

            Really, Severus thought, who wanted him to teach at all?

            "Then you will not be in my class."

            Draco stood and swept to the doorway, the regality he had come by in birth still as strong as ever.  One hand on the door's bulky latch, he bowed his head slightly, the bright hair shimmering in the gloom.  "I didn't say I didn't want to, Professor.  Only that I shouldn't.  A Malfoy always thinks about appearances."  He looked over his shoulder then, his lips drawn into a smirk that was meant to defend himself, to protect what lay beneath.  "So to hell with appearances."


	2. Lessons We Learn

          "And the boy?"  Dumbledore effortlessly changed the candies in his bowl, shifting kinds and flavors and shapes, dissatisfied with each selection.  He was craving something, but couldn't quite put his finger on what.

          Changing a bowl of chocolate frogs into bright pink licorice whips, he figured he'd come across something he wanted eventually.

          Severus looked on, something between disgust and fascination warring on his pinched features.  With Voldemort gone, he had much less to be displeased about, but Severus Snape wasn't one to break habits easily.

          "Draco is doing well, considering the adjustments he's been forced to make," Severus said, looking down his nose at the bowl, which was now full of wha appeared to be orange gummy spiders.

          "Fantastic," Dumbledore said.  Classes had only been underway a week, but that was more than enough time.  "I have another class for him to take."  He had the satisfaction of seeing Severus grasp for words, if only momentarily.

          "Headmaster, I don't think you understand.  He's already enrolled in doubles of each of his classes.  The boy is trying to work himself to—"  He'd been ready to say "to death," then thought better of it with a wince.

          He'd watched Draco as the young man had thrown himself into what he remembered of normalcy—classes and Quidditch.  But with so little of Slytherin house left, it was nearly impossible to scrape together a team.

          Severus meant to do it, if only for Draco's sake.

          "He'll have another class, Severus," Dumbledore insisted, letting out a soft "ahh" as he conjured a bowl of cherry cordials.  "Send him to my classroom, 12 after eleven, sharp."  

          Severus was once again at a loss for words, his pallid face growing pinker by the second.  "Albus, you don't mean to teach again."

          "Not in so many words," the old headmaster said pleasantly, wondering how long the Potions Master was going to be able to sour without the constant strain of being a double agent.

          Sadly, Albus knew, there were years of memories, years of guilt that Severus had yet to atone for.

          And so the headmaster did what he could to help alleviate the problem.  "I've something for you.  I've been keeping it at her direction, but surely she won't mind."  

          Severus's eyebrows rose sharply at the mention of a "she."  The only one who would ever pay him mind—the only one who ever had, really—was miles away in America, sweeping up the last of the Death Eaters.

          Dea, whom he'd have gladly died for.  And die he nearly had, risking life and limb to protect her against Lucius Malfoy, and then risking his heart to send her away with Remus Lupin.

          Only a fool pressed on when he wasn't the better man, and Severus Snape was no fool.

          But he grabbed the owled message from Albus with barely concealed eagerness and read her words to himself.

          _Severus,_

_          Doubtless you're back at Hogwarts, teaching your students and surely making yourself feel bad over something or other. _

_          Our work here is nearly done, and Remus has steadily worked his way up through the ranks.  Even if they minded his condition, it would hardly matter now.  He's nigh to indispensable.  Makes his head a mite big, you know. _

_          As for me, I've turned legitimate.  Healer's degree and everything.  _

_          Because I'm nosy, as ever, and impertinent and crass and rude, as you never failed to remind me, I demand to know how you are._

_          I can't rest when I don't know. _

_          I've told Albus to keep this until things are settled there, so you'll just have to deal with it if it's weeks and weeks before you hear word from me. _

_          Knowing you, you'll have already assumed I blew us all up or something similar._

_          Someday soon, I'll be back to keep an eye on you._

_          Someone has to._

          And instead of a signature, a small golden heart graced the bottom of the page.

          In the aftermath of a war, she'd disappeared to clean up remnants of it, disappeared with the man she'd come to love, and in doing so, she'd left another behind, wounded just as surely as anyone else.

          Severus missed her, missed the only one who'd ever understood him.

          And because he did, he cleared his throat and deposited the message carelessly in one of myriad pockets in his robe.  "Very well," he said, looking back at the headmaster.  "Was there anything else you wished of me?"

          Popping yet another candy into his mouth, Dumbledore looked thoughtful, though he wanted to smile at the man who was still very much a lonely, lonely boy.  "I don't believe so.  Cherry?"

~~~

          "It isn't as though any of them matter."  Draco walked down the hallway beside Severus, his fingers clenching and unclenching in a fist, a nervous gesture that hadn't existed before the death of his parents.

          "All of your classes matter," Severus said, feeling the last of his patience ebb away.  Really, who could deal with such a difficult boy?

          Surely he'd never been one himself.

          "What am I supposed to do?" Draco said, turning and looking at Severus defiantly.  What need had he for obedience, after all?  The worst they could do was tell his parents—if they'd still been alive.  "Finish this place and move onto a job?"  He scoffed at the thought.  "Sure, with a name like Malfoy, everyone'll be going absolutely nutters to hire me."

          "Only if you choose to quit sniveling and make yourself better than your name," Severus said, the seemingly heartless remark hitting its mark perfectly.  Draco's spine stiffened and he quickened his pace to Dumbledore's old classroom.

          By the time Severus caught up, he could hear the young man arguing with the headmaster.  Though the argumentative mood had been steadily set since Draco's return to Hogwarts, he was shocked to see the boy arguing with Albus Dumbledore.  But Severus had to admit—it was fairly amusing.

          "You're not getting my bloody wand!" Draco said haughtily, crossing his arms over his chest and keeping the wand tucked in it.  "It's not like I'm going to hurt anyone with it."

          "I wouldn't count on that," Albus said cagily.  "I'm not sending you into battle unarmed, Draco, I'm only asking that you check the wand with me for a portion of an hour."  It was very nearly a lie, Albus thought.  Battle it would be, and he'd be remiss if he missed eavesdropping on at least a little of it.

          Draco made the mistake of brandishing his wand, preparing to make a long-winded speech about what could and could not be done to a Malfoy.  It only took a split second, and Dumbledore had him disarmed neatly.  He was near to spluttering when Dumbledore shunted him into the classroom.

          Breathing heavily, the old man turned and eyed Severus.  "Not as young as I used to be," he explained.  

          But Severus was too busy trying to look in the door to hear his mentor.  When he saw what—or who, precisely—was in the room, he stepped back with a raised eyebrow.

          "I hardly think that's wise, Headmaster.  After all, it's bad enough that you locked together a Weasley and a Malfoy, but that you locked together an adolescent boy and an adolescent girl is somewhat volatile."  No matter what his reservations were, he couldn't help the smirk that crossed his face.  

          If there were two people in Hogwarts who could stand to take lessons from one another, it was those two.

          "Bloody buggering hell!" The words came, surprisingly, from Ginny's mouth rather than Draco's.

          He was stricken speechless.

          "You know, that's the last time I ever agree to do the headmaster a favor without asking what it is," Ginny said decisively, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Draco.  "I'd never dreamed he'd lock me up with an animal just for jollies."

          "I'm supposed to be in a class, Weasel," Draco said, turning and trying the door handle.  

          The bint was right.  They really _were_ locked up.

          "It isn't as though my life isn't bad enough," Draco shouted, hoping they could hear him through the door.  "My parents are dead, and now you lock me in with one of these redheaded, freckled wretches?  Too bad I didn't die, as well, eh?"

          He never even saw the book flying toward the back of his head.


	3. Toe to Toe

**Author's note: I'm sorry this is going so slowly—I'm writing several things at the moment, and also working two jobs.  Did I mention I've had computer problems?  Life is good, let me just tell you.  This piece is a little lighter than the last two, which is intentional.  Hope you're enjoying it.  Any and all feedback welcome.  Happy reading!**

            Draco turned with such speed that Ginny let out a little squeak, and simultaneously their hands dropped down, to draw forth wands.

            "Damn it!" they chorused as one, countenances falling with the realization that they could not hex one another.

            Ginny was the first to move, throwing herself behind her desk with a sigh of exasperation.  Her first instinct had been to charge him; after all, a girl with six older brothers was completely able to take care of herself.  

            But that meant touching Malfoy, and she'd just as soon pass.

            She buried herself in the homework she'd brought with her, trying to keep her inquisitiveness at bay.  The albino had said something about a class, and she hadn't the slightest notion of what he was talking about.  

             Biting her lip, she glanced up at him, then hurriedly averted her gaze.

            "What are you looking at, Weasel?" Draco sneered, crossing his arms over his chest.  There had to be some way out of the room.

            "I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out," she snarked back, rolling her eyes.

            In the hallway, listening to the epithets wing their way across the room between the two enemies, Dumbledore hummed happily.  Severus sat across the hallway, his arms crossed over his chest, a look of pure incredulity written over his face.  

            "You are a perverse individual," he ruled.  "However, you are the headmaster.  I have class to conduct.  Do not let that reprobate harm my Seeker."

            "Professor Snape."  The voice that sounded behind them was cool, quiet, and declarative.

            He turned to face his greeter and, for a moment, felt the world fall away, temporal constraints fall away, and he was flung into the past with a platinum-haired ally turned enemy.

            But it wasn't Lucius.  It wasn't even a man, but a woman walking down the hall toward him, her white-blonde hair coiffed in large curls around her thin face, her eyes not gray, but brown instead.  Her wardrobe wasn't a silk or fur robe, but instead a well-worn cotton dress, its long skirt smattered with patches and mending.

            No matter the sartorial differences, however, the cheekbones were high and slashing in her face, her full mouth set in a regal moue of displeasure.  She had to be a Malfoy, Severus thought, his stomach twisting.

            So where the hell had she come from?

            Dumbledore was looking at her with something akin to fascination, his attention momentarily diverted from the quarreling pair in his classroom.  

            "Hello there," he said pleasantly, though her appearance gave him quite a start.  It was alarming how much she looked like him—the recently departed Death Eater who had made more than one life a living hell.  The cold beauty had worn well on this woman's face, muted to a classic sort of quietness.

            She spared him a quick glance that could have been taken for dismissive, but Dumbledore could see the nerves dancing behind the quick flit of eyes.  

            She opened her mouth to say something when a barrage of creative swearing poured out of the room in front of them.  Her curiosity peaked, the woman stood on tiptoe to look in the window, and then the look of displeasure hardened into something more certain.  

            "Take him out of there," she said stiffly, whirling to face the two men.  "I don't know what the meaning of this is, but they shouldn't be allowed to spit such words at one another."

            "Madam, I'm forced to inquire as to your identity," Severus said, not caring at all for her tone.  Though he certainly wasn't in charge at Hogwarts and likely never would be, he'd come far from the cowering Slytherin boy he'd once been.  The last thing he needed or wanted was some polished face telling him what he could and couldn't do.

            She pinned him with a glare that held more than a little worry for the boy inside the room, and the care in that glance made Severus's resolve falter.  

            He'd thought himself the only person left who gave half a damn about the boy.

            "My name is Lilith Benedict, and I ask that you let my nephew out of that room immediately."

            Long accustomed to hiding his feelings, Severus kept his countenance blank, carefully hiding the nasty shock her words had given him.  Nephew?  Pureblood families were well-known in the magic world, so well-known that a long-lost relative was hardly an option.  

            But witches and wizards kept secrets well, and a secret as large as an unclaimed Malfoy would certainly be a secret worth keeping.

            "Well, you're not an aunt of Sirius's," Dumbledore said, cocking his head slightly as he heard Draco call Ginny 'fool's spawn' and comment on his awe at her father's ability to have children at all.  "So that makes you a…"

            "Bastard sister of Lucius Malfoy," she said, her voice still quiet.  "Unclaimed and unwilling to be so, until now.  That boy in there has no family excepting me.  I'm not so proud I would let my own hubris stand in the way of that."

            "And you believe you have a right to be here, tossing orders around?"  Severus sneered and looked down his nose at her, trying to puzzle out the strange mix of confidence and timidity she was displaying.

            She wasn't too timid to stand up to him, though, lifting her chin and staring him straight in the eye.  "I'm his family.  Someone must make decisions."

            "Then why not the people who know and actually care about him?" Severus retorted triumphantly.

            _Aha, Dumbledore thought.  Severus had never admitted to caring for the boy, but he knew Draco was the closest thing to a son Severus had.  They had a rapport unlike any other Dumbledore had seen, unspoken and unacknowledged but strong nonetheless.   _

            Lilith didn't have an answer for the tall man with the angry face, the Potions master who seemed to temporarily be watching over her nephew.  She didn't have a reasonable answer, but she had a response at hand.

            "Better someone who does not know him than a Death Eater who orphaned him."

            She felt a small twinge of regret as the guilt, the weighty responsibility, slid over the cruelly handsome face.  It wasn't like her to say such things, but orphans reached out to orphans, didn't they?

            No matter what the cost, no matter who they had to reach over.  And, Lilith thought, she had plenty of reaching to do. 

            If she had anything to do with it, Draco Malfoy would be out of England as soon as she could manage it, and away from the memories that surely plagued him. 

            "Better, indeed, Miss Benedict," Severus said, feeling the pit of his stomach plummet at her words.  What was more stinging than the truth, at any rate?  "I believe I'll leave this to you, Albus."  He began to walk away, but his next words were not lost on the rueful relation of Draco's.  "A Death Eater has no place in a discussion of family."


	4. The Thoughts We think

CHAPTER FOUR

            Albus turned his attention away from the striking blonde in front of him and pointed his wand at the classroom door, sending a little spark spitting at it.  "There, now they'll be able to get out as soon as they bother to try the door.  By the sound of it, that won't be for quite some time."  

            He gestured for her to follow and began the trek down the hallway to his offices, talking without looking back at her.  "I don't believe I have to tell you how unnecessarily cruel your last remark to my Potions master was, do I?"

            Lilith felt her head dip a little and winced.  How was it these schoolmaster types always seemed to know how to make one feel like a whipped dog?  "He has no jurisdiction in the matter of my nephew," she said stiffly, defensively.

            "On the contrary, Miss Benedict, he has more vested interest than anyone else."  Dumbledore aimed a look over his shoulder at her.  "I would invite you up to my office; however, I need to think on what has passed here tonight.  If you'll continue down the hall and take the first right, you will find a room has been prepared for you."

            "A room?  How?"  Her amazement steamrolled effectively over her staunch resolve; she certainly hadn't meant to stay.  She'd meant to double back, get Draco, and leave.

            But a room in this castle?  Prepared already?  The impoverished child she'd once been yearned for the simple luxury.  

            Dumbledore gestured to his wand.  "Long-distance multi-tasking," he said.  "Please go on, Miss Benedict.  Should you need anything, a house elf will attend to you."

            She never got the chance to object before the headmaster had disappeared, leaving her with that pervasive sense of amazement.

            "Blast it," she sighed, and took the directions he'd given her.

~~~

            After going through his classes with the motions of one sleepwalking, he returned to his dungeons.  He worked furiously, long, thin fingers sorting bottles and labels with the ease of long practice.  Severus organized, refilled, shifted, and classified the potions in his store, utilizing the labor to keep his mind occupied.

            Would it always come back to the mistakes he'd made?

            "Asphodel, conger blood, hellebore, wormwood," he muttered, swiftly alphabetizing the extra tins and bottles he had left, his voice loud and desperate, trying to push away his thoughts.

            She'd looked so much like Lucius, _so much like him, that to hear accusations from her mouth seemed almost farcical.  _

            Suddenly weary, he laid his head down on his hands in the middle of his counter, letting the memories and thoughts storm through him.  

            Albus's masked disappointment and magnanimous understanding when he'd learned of Severus's alliances with the Dark Lord.

            The mistrustful looks of students and members of the Order.

            Dea's shock, stumbling away from him with revulsion and fear. 

            Draco's penetrating stare, not accusatory but still holding blame in their very blamelessness.

            And Lilith Benedict's quietly derisive statement rendering him despicable no matter what his redemptive actions.

            And though his eyes were dry and his voice silenced by years of long practice, inside Hogwarts' misfit professor, sobs echoed cavernously.

~~~

            "And then we were in there for Merlin knows how long with the door unlocked!" Ginny exclaimed, thumping her fist on the table of the Great Hall.  

            Hermione raised an eyebrow and, with a sigh, turned her attention from the textbook she was reading.  "Ginny, really, I find it hard to believe that the headmaster and a professor would lock two students up in a room."  But even as she spoke the words, Malfoy walked by alone, as he had been ever since his return, and shot Ginny a glare.  Though the glare itself wouldn't have been unusual, the intensity had Hermione wondering—after all, it wasn't as though he'd ever taken the time to single anyone but Harry out before.

            "Believe me now?" Ginny asked, a self-satisfied smile on her face.

            "This place has gone absolutely batty," Hermione said, her voice a bit awed.  "Unbelievable."  But as she opened her mouth to opine further on the topic, she saw her friend's eyes focus elsewhere, on the back of her retreating enemy, and she pressed her lips together tightly.

            Curiosity had its place elsewhere, and so for once, Hermione curbed her questions.

~~~  
            Evening wore on into night, and in separate parts of the Hogwarts castle, many different thoughts swarmed.

            In guest chambers on the ground floor, the denied child of a Malfoy marveled at the luxury of a warm fire, a soft bed, and the aid of house elves with every beck and call.  As she laid down to sleep, truly comfortable for the first time in her 32 years, she wondered not for the first time, if she was doing right by the young man who was her nephew only technically.  

            In the headmaster's office, through labyrinthine twists and turns, the headmaster had a discussion with his Potions Master on what was to be done about Lilith Benedict.  In a show of trust for his staff and as a test of his employee's emotions, the headmaster shrugged the matter off and left it up to his Potions Master.

            In a private room in Slytherin house, an orphaned young man thought of his mother and wondered when, if at all, things would return to normal.  Completely ignorant of his new—and only—relative upstairs, the young man turned his mind to the day's events and sneered at the thought of his redheaded nemesis, letting the easy rhythm of lifelong combativeness lull him into sleep.

            In her room in Gryffindor tower, the young man's nemesis lay with her firefall of hair spread over her pillow, her eyes fixed wide and intent above her as she tried to fathom what it would be like to be without family in a world as big as theirs was.

~~~

            He couldn't even begin to surmise what in Merlin's name she was doing.

            The idiot wench was standing on the tips of her toes outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, staring through the window of the door.  Her small, tapered fingertips rested lightly on the door as she leaned on it as though trying to hear what was going on, and two bright spots of color burned in her pale cheeks.

            Unable to resist and unable to quell the flood of annoyance rising up in him, Severus rapped her knuckles with his wand, making her gasp and jump back, hands clasped together.  

            "What do you think you're doing?" they asked simultaneously, one all indignant outrage and the other calm disdain. 

            "I hardly feel the need to answer that, Miss Benedict, as my reasoning is justifiable and rational, though it's no doubt of mine those concepts are far lost on a woman such as yourself."  He wondered fleetingly where her own wand was, or if she was perhaps a Squib, and with that thought his mind skipped to Amadea, so many miles away.  

            He could definitely use a woman's ear right now.

            "I understand justification and rationale," Lilith spat, rubbing her fingers and trying to keep her eyes from jerking back to the classroom door.  "If that's what you call ambushing and abusing a woman."  Truthfully, she felt guilty.  Technically, she'd been spying on the classroom, watching her nephew, all bright blond hair and sullen glares.  Was that was Lucius had made him into?  

            She'd only met her half-brother once, when her mother had brought her to the Malfoy mansion, demanding reparations for the wrongs done her.  Lucius had been a teenager then, and Lilith herself barely an adolescent. 

            He had stood by his father's side, his eyes assessing her flatly, the sneer on his mouth both suggestive and subversive.  It was not, by any means, a brotherly look he'd been giving her, and to this day it still sent chills down her spine.          

            Lilith supposed she should be grateful the boy was even alive, with a snake like that for a father.

            "If you're done daydreaming, Miss Benedict, perhaps you'd like to step into my office," Severus said through grated teeth.  He'd been trying to get her attention for several seconds.  "Thought I'm sure it pains you to be associated with a Death Eater, it doesn't strike me you would like to waltz in there and announce your presence to an already confused young man."

            As brave as she'd been so far, that particular act was out of her reach.  But she had actions that could be taken immediately.  Her manners, ever-present and often cloying, forced her to lower her voice and divert her eyes as she responded.  "No, I don't believe that will be necessary.  There were several things I'd like to address with you."

            He merely gaped at her for a moment, his black eyes unreadable even in the bright hallway of the school.  She'd been angry, he'd seen it in her eyes, in her posture, heard it in her words, and then suddenly the quiet, soft-spoken tone she'd used the evening before had been back into place as firmly as a dungeon door slamming.

            _We all have our sides and secrets, _he told himself, impatient with the further delay.  With a single, curt motion, he had her following him down the hallway.


	5. The Bonds of Family

CHAPTER FIVE

            His life had held many shocks but few true surprises, for a man of Severus Snape's temperament was rarely surprised by the bad things in life.

            This, however, could safely qualify as a surprising moment in the long and varied life of Hogwarts' Potions Master. 

            "No magic?" he repeated, at a loss for a mordant retort.  

            "In light of recent events, I think it's best if my nephew were quarantined from the magic world at large.  He has been harmed enough by all this madness, I hardly think learning how to do the things that got his father killed will be a valuable experience."  She'd rehearsed the speech in her head, and it hadn't sounded nearly as ridiculous then.  But now, with the cool black eyes staring at her, Lilith knew she'd be feeling foolish no matter what she was saying.

            "Tell me, Ms. Benedict," Severus said, regaining his composure easily.  "Do you practice magic?"

            The color dropped from her already pale cheeks, and though Severus couldn't see where she suddenly went, where the faraway eyes focused, he could see she was suddenly somewhere else entirely.

            _Frail hands, bony, claw-like and weak, grasping desperately for Lilith's own fair hands, hands roughened by work._

_            "Help me, Libby," her mother said, her eyes imploring as she uttered her daughter's childhood nickname.  "Please…"_

_            Wide, wet eyes met wide, wet eyes and Lilith cursed her heritage, cursed the father she'd never had.  Poverty had driven them to such a state, and Lilith abided day by day, her magic useless against her mother's illnesses, her face a constant reminder of the man who was gone._

Magic had not made a whit of a difference in the life of Olive Benedict, and that had haunted Lilith for the ten years since her mother's death.  The only magic the woman had needed was the perfectly ordinary kind—the kind even Muggles had, stemming from the heart and given freely.

            "No," she responded to Severus, her voice hollow.  "I don't."  The dreamy, faraway look in her chocolate eyes sharpened, bringing her back into the room, back to him.  

            He felt his lip curl in a sneer, in a look of disdain meant as surely for himself as for her.  After all, who between the two of them had cowered behind bottles and tins, crushed plants and powdered bones?  He'd done his greatest work, not with a wand, but with a cauldron, and all because he'd been too scared to do otherwise, too aware of his own Slyterin tendencies and weaknesses.

            He was trying to think of a response, appropriate or no, when the door to his office burst open and a long-limbed, platinum-blond young man strode in, his nearly beautiful features marred by an annoyed countenance.  He'd not once before utilized the open invitation he'd been granted to his Head of House's office.

            "What I'm learning in Defense could fit in a thimble," he spat, keeping his eyes on his textbook in a menacing glare.  "Shacklebolt, maybe not so bad, but that Tonks bint—"  Draco looked up then, ready to be rebuked for the name-calling, and felt all the moisture in his throat dwindle to nothing, his anger dissipate into a phantom.  His heart felt as though it were beating in his throat, and the only movement he was capable of was reflex.

            He cowered, both hands thrown in front of his face as though to ward off a blow from—

            No doubt his father, Severus thought, moved to action by his pity—and by his sympathy.  He stood and placed himself between the aunt and the nephew.  

            "No, you don't have to do that," Lilith said, raising wide eyes to Severus's narrowed ones.  "Please," she pleaded, her hands thrown out in supplication.  

            "Fucking bastard!" Draco shouted from behind his hands, unwinding like a spring to leap at the figure behind Severus.  "Let me—just let me—"  

            One hand shoved at Severus while the other reached for his wand, and all Draco could see was those tendrils of hair, thick and bright like his own, and bile rose up in his throat, bringing hot, stinging tears into his eyes.  He struggled like that until two strong hands pressed down on his shoulders, and a usually sarcastic voice spoke in dulcet tones.

            "It's not him, Draco.  It isn't him."  And then the strong hands shifted Draco to the side so he could see her—this woman who was clearly not his father, but who could have been, but for a few small changes.  

            It was Lilith's turn to cower, her doe eyes rapidly leaking tears as she pressed a slim, chapped hand to her mouth to stifle the small sobs that wanted to escape from it.

            How could she have anticipated that?  Anticipated that he would come into the office when she wasn't prepared to see him, anticipated that he could be so damaged? 

            Before this moment, he had been abstract to her, a duty, an obligation, but now she could not deny the pull of family, the emotion attached to seeing this beautiful boy so warped by time and circumstance. 

            He took one hesitant step toward the woman, her appearance so shocking to him he kept his eyes squint as though looking into the sun, his fingers still riding the air above his wand in a posture of readiness that made Severus proud. 

            "Draco," Lilith said, reaching one hand out to him, and he recoiled as though stricken.

            "What are you?" he ground out, his chin tipping into the air once again, master to servant, pride restored.  

            It looked as though they were sided against her, she thought, the two of them standing in almost identical poses, light and dark heads tilted back, dark and light eyes assessing.  

            She saw Severus Snape's lips thin in a smirk and she could practically hear his mental rejoinder: _Excellent question… what are _you, Miss Benedict?__

He was definitely going to be no help.

            "It's complicated," she said, standing and tipping her own chin back.  She'd come here for a purpose, hadn't she?  "But to trim a lengthy matter down, I'm your aunt and I've come to take you away from Hogwarts."

            "You look like _him,_" Draco said, a grimace twisting his features as he thought of his father.  "Which means you're no family of mine.  Even if you were, you'd have to kill me before you took me out of here."  With that, Draco cast his eyes to his mentor, pain flashing briefly before the silver indignation he'd treated Lilith to.  Why had his professor been sitting in the office with this woman, knowing full well who she was, and never said anything to his student?

            "I have class," he said, turning on his heel and leaving the office without so much as a backward glance, his heart still tripping along at a nastily rapid rate. 

            Silence fell, perfectly suiting the gloom of Severus's office, and several minutes passed before Lilith finally broke it, her tone defensive.  

            "He looks like _him_, too," she said, hating the immaturity in her statement but unable to stop it.  

            When Severus finally answered her, Lilith wondered why it had never occurred to her.

            "Yes, he does look like Lucius.  Why do you think he loathes himself so much?"  The man who looked like his own father, a monster of a different variety, stared out the door where his pupil had gone.

~~~

            She'd been sitting in the library, minding her own good business, for once actually doing her Potions assignment, and the next thing she knew—

            —Ginny was sitting in Dumbledore's old classroom, the press of her wand against her side conspicuously gone, her Potions homework sitting neatly before her.  

            "Oh, bugger," she said, but her voice was more weary than cross.  She might have known she couldn't skip out on a class assigned by the headmaster himself.

            "I'd say the same, only now it would seem banal."  Draco sat in the room's dormer window, one knee bent and the other dangling down along the wall, his eyes turned slightly out the window.  

            He had come voluntarily, choosing an hour with a Weasley over another minute in the room with that… thing, that woman that looked so much like his father and the professor who had apparently been keeping Draco in the dark, as it were.

            He'd brought his wand with him, conjuring patterns and shapes on the wide expanse of glass before him, and when it was precisely 11:12, his wand had vanished and he'd been left holding his hand aloft like a fool.

            That was when the Haughty Pauper, as he'd come to think of Ginny, had popped into the room looking bewildered and not a little brassed off.

            "For Merlin's sake," she sassed, getting up from her desk.  "What's the meaning of all this, then?"

            "It's a class," he said mildly, the fight momentarily gone from him.  The Weasley was fighting enough for both of them, he noted, and watching her struggle with the prospect of another hour alone with him was definitely taking some of the edge off.

            "A class, is it?  What do you think we're learning, Malfoy?" Ginny shouted, uncomfortable with his acquiescence.  He'd been much easier to deal with when he was calling names and strutting about the place like a peacock on a potion.  Now, with his eyes cast out the window and his long-limbed figure silhouetted against the light pouring in, he just looked a bit sad, a bit melancholy.

            "Perhaps it's a branch of Care of Magical Creatures," he said, finally turning to fully look at her, a nearly white eyebrow arched insouciantly.  "It seems I've reached the lesson on caring for penniless weasels."  But the sting was absent from his words, and he turned away from her once again.          

            Annoyed at his non-engagement in the argument, Ginny stamped her foot impatiently.  She opened her mouth to speak, shut it, opened it again, and blew her hair out of her eyes.  

            What good was an enemy without enmity? 

            "You've a big family, Weasley, how does one deal with all those meddling, upsetting people?" he asked, using a finely-shaped fingertip to draw the outline of a dragon in the haze that had formed from his proximity to the cool window.  He added a few scales here and there, and then a wickedly pointed tongue, then shot his eyes over to her.

            The daft biddy was gaping at him like the town fool.  It was like trying to converse with Crabbe or Goyle, honestly—

            But Crabbe and Goyle were dead, or presumed so, weren't they?

            "Too good to answer me, _Duchess?_"  That particular idea perked him up a bit—the Weasleys as royalty.  Too funny, that.

            "I don't know what you mean," Ginny said, pacing the room so as not to have to look at him.  "My family isn't precisely meddling, you know.  Upsetting at times, perhaps, but…"  She trailed off.

            "And I'm sure the Weasley family forest is well-documented, thousands of offspring that there are," he conjectured, more to himself than her.  "So no chance of random little Weaslettes popping up here or there."  Hopeful, he turned his eyes to her.  "No chance?"

            Biting her lip, she shook her head.  Draco Malfoy, though never known to be the sanest among the Hogwarts set, had clearly lost his marbles, conversing about family with a Weasley.  Fleetingly, Ginny wondered if he could manage to kill her without his wand.

            "Well, you never know," he said, turning back to etch in flames with a surprising amount of skill.  "You think you know everything, then—"  With a shrug, he wiped the window clean with the sleeve of his robe.  He could feel her eyes on him and so he kept his out the window.  "Get back to the lessons, Weasley, I'd hate to be responsible for the further failure of the most prolific family in the wizarding world."

            He heard her sit and, after a few moments' hesitation, her quill begin to scratch over the parchment.  Waiting until she was busy, he slid sinuously out of his comfortable seat and chose a desk at random, turning it to face her.

            "I can't do my lessons if you're ogling me," she said, keeping her eyes down as a flush stained her cheeks.

            "Sure you can, Weasel.  You can sleep in a house of a family of nine, can't you?"  He pulled out his own parchment and pen, and in his own way, Draco began to do his lessons.


	6. Puzzlement

**Author's Note:  All my apologies… illness + a new job= a very poor updater, indeed.  I enjoy—nay, _encourage—feedback, especially if you feel my writing is falling short.  I'm a glutton for punishment, kids and folks, so bring it on.  Much joy this holiday season to all of you, and happy reading.**_

            Gods… she was crying.

            Severus couldn't really bring himself to any other train of thought; the blasted woman had been crying like a ninny ever since Draco had stormed out of the office, and he hadn't the slightest idea of what to do with her.

            Tears, especially tears from a woman, made Severus Snape uncomfortable.  Had he been the least bit inclined to something so hackneyed as, say, a cheering charm, he could have performed one.

            But there was no cheering charm in the depths of the former Death Eater, there was only a sick feeling of helplessness that always seemed to accompany feminine tears.  What had he ever been able to do for his weeping mother, chained by emotional weakness to the man who abused her?  And what had he ever been able to do for Dea, foolish enough to love a man who hadn't the slightest idea how to love her back?  

            "Come on," he said.  "Show a spine.  You're bloody well lucky he didn't hex you."  

            "I didn't know," she said, her voice muffled by her hands, which were covering her face.  "I didn't know it was that bad."

            Severus couldn't help the snide smile that started to twist his face; hadn't he tried to tell her as much, that she didn't know and didn't care enough to help the boy?

            Sometimes the say "I told you so" was too strong to overcome and so he did just that.

            "My, my, what a recidivist attitude."

            The statement, uttered in that damned know-it-all, holier-than-thou tone of voice had Severus pivoting slowly, face carefully composed into a mask of calmness, movements perfectly timed to conceal eagerness.

            Dea was back.

            She had a smile for him, which was more than most did, and though he'd tried his hardest to curb her touchy ways, she put a hand to his thin cheek and smiled.  Her mahogany hair was a bit longer, the grey streak a bit wider, but the chronic worry was gone from her eyes, and she looked at him as though she'd never left.

            "Albus let me in," she said by way of explanation, stretching her arms in her long, orange robes and eyeing the figure huddled in the chair in front of Severus's desk.  "Oh, Severus, have you made a student cry?"

            And then Lilith raised her head.

            Dea stumbled back, mouth dropped in a nearly-perfect 'O,' a hand extended back, groping for something, anything to support her.

            _Onesies__, twosies, threesies, three, I see a birdie in a tree… _

"Oh good heavens," she expelled in a breath.  "We'd heard—"  To relieve some of the shock, she tore her eyes away from the woman and back to Severus, who had gripped her shoulder to keep her from falling.  "Albus told us about her, but…"

            Seeing the other woman's obvious shock helped Lilith regain her composure, and she stood, pulling herself up straight, her tall body all but dwarfing Dea.  "But you didn't know I'd look so much like him," she finished, trying to hide the misery in her voice.  "Well, what can I say?  Malfoy blood runs strong."

            "Apparently not too strong," Dea said, extending her small hand to the woman, though a tiny part of her quivered at the gesture.  "Since you don't act a bit like a Malfoy."  Dea tilted her head, seeing that the woman was hesitant to shake her hand, and made the first move, grasping the long, thin fingers with short fingers of her own.  "I'm Amadea Middlemarch."

            "You're American," Lilth stated, wincing at her inanity.  Obviously she was American.

            "I'm a bit of a mutt, really," Dea said, releasing Lilith's hand and letting her attention wander back to Severus.  "But I can't stay away from old friends too long."  Underneath the stoicism, he was tense; it wasn't hard for her to tell, because there were many things about Severus Snape that hadn't changed a bit since his own years as a student.  "I've a feeling I interrupted something."

            "A story too long for your attention span to weather," Severus said dryly, trying to keep the small amount of malice at bay as he wondered where Dea's lycanthropic companion was likely to be.  "I've bottles for Lupin.  Don't forget to remind him," he said tersely.

            Oh, how he'd wanted her to come back, and now that she was here, he was too ashamed to admit he'd needed her.  

            "You can remind him yourself, later," Dea said gently.  It would be too much to ask, she knew, for the two men she loved to get along.

            But she could damn well try to force them.

            "I'll leave the two of you be," Dea said, and walked out of the office and straight into Remus's arms.

            As the heavy dungeon door slammed shut, Severus stared at it as though he could still see the woman that had left and the man she had left with, and for a moment he forgot he was not the only person in his office. 

            Lilith watched the tall, dark man with an intense sort of fascination, feeling more than a bit like a voyeur as she saw the flicker of yearning come and go on his face, an emotion too human for her to immediately connect with him.  He had, after all, been a Death Eater, hadn't he?  A contemporary of her dear brother?

            "I must go," she said suddenly, standing and jostling his arm in her hurry to get past him.  

            And as she walked out the door, Severus realized a bit guiltily that he'd completely forgotten she was sitting there.

~~~  
            Ginny checked the small pocket watch hanging from her bag for what seemed, to her, to be the thousandth time.            

            It would be fantastic if her hour would be up and she could get away from the odious little prat.  He'd been sitting there, sketching on his parchment for the better part of an hour, staring at her every two or three seconds, eyes intense and hooded.

            Creepy, she insisted to herself as her ever-curious eyes strained to see the drawing.

            "If you want to ask, all you have to do is say so," Draco said without looking up, his head bent over the sheet of parchment, thick blonde locks dropping into his eyes.  "But far be it from me to try and teach an oh-so-good-and-proper Weasley some manners."

            "Shove off, Malfoy," Ginny said, scowling.  "Why would I want to see some picture you've drawn of me getting eaten by a dragon, or me with a hex thrown on me?"

            And then he'd held the drawing up, damn him to blazes.

            It was good, shockingly so, no dragons or hexmarks to be found, only her toiling over her homework, hair brushing the desk and dropping over her shoulders, the tip of her tongue touched to her lips in a show of concentration.

            Draco slid the drawing onto her desk, gathered his things, and walked to the door just as the hour was up.

            "Don't you want this?" Ginny asked, holding up the parchment and standing.

            He never turned around, only turned the doorknob and spoke as he walked into the hallway.  "What in the bloody hell would I want a picture of a Weasley for?"

            Ginny had nothing left to do but voice the completely frustrated yowl that came to her lips.

~~~

            "You're shaking."  Remus's voice was gentle, but there was strength underneath it, more than a little bit of anger at the thought that someone had frightened her so.  He'd been able to protect her, once, but not as much as he would have liked.

            There were limits to how well you could do anything when you'd been turned into a wolf.

            "It's just eerie," Dea said, her hands splayed on Remus's chest, the soft and steady beat of his heart under her palms.  "I wasn't expecting it."

            "Are you all right?" 

            She seemed to think about this for a moment, then she tilted her head back and smiled at him.  "Of course."  But her brow was furrowed in thought, and he kissed the worried wrinkle that formed in the middle of her forehead.  "It's Severus I'm worried about."

            To his credit, Remus didn't even bat an eyelash, much as he wanted to.  "Severus is a grown man."

            "Dealing with a woman who looks like his best friend, turned into his worst enemy."

            Remus released her from his embrace slowly, tangling his fingers with hers as he started a long-limbed shamble down the hallway, shoving his graying hair out of his eyes with his other hand.  She ran to catch up, their hands clasped between them, and looked up at him.  "Where are you going?"

            "To talk to Albus.  It looks like we're going to be here for a while," he said, smiling as he looked straight ahead.

            She was too damned easy to indulge, and he was too confident to let the thought of Severus daunt him anymore.  He liked to think they'd come to a sort of agreement before they'd left for America.

            And for that, the lone remaining Marauder thought, he owed Severus plenty.


	7. May I be of Assistance

            She'd made a mistake, and not for the first time.  Her life had been fraught with them, starting with her refusal to go to Hogwarts, speeding right along to the years of her life in which she'd done whatever she'd pleased, blaming her mother for her troubles.  After all, Olive Benedict had been the one who'd gotten pregnant with the child of a married man.

            How easy, Lilith thought, it was to place blame when you were too young to know better.  When she was young, everything had been so clear cut.  And lately, she'd felt the same way about her nephew—she was his blood, therefore she should take care of him.

            Black and white, clear cut.

            This school was shaded grey, full of complications as diverse and bizarre as the people who filled it.  Elderly, idiosyncratic headmaster, boy hero as a student, Death Eater as teacher, a werewolf and an American roaming the halls as though they owned the place.  With a pang of jealousy Lilith realized they all had something she didn't.

            They belonged.

            Blowing a breath out between her teeth, she considered packing up her meager belongings and leaving the school.  But she'd never given up, not a single time, not even—especially not even—when she was wrong.  

            _Make your bed and lie in it, her mother had often said, and though Lilith had brushed that warning off as an adage referring to a certain Balthasar Malfoy, she knew know it pertained to more than just that._

            "Make your bed and lie in it," Lilith told herself, slipping between the sheets that had been righted by house elves.  As she stared at the canopy above her bed, she blew out another frustrated breath.  "Brew your potion and take it."

~~~

            "Your demands grow more and more ridiculous and outlandish each day."  Severus said, carefully masking the disbelief in his voice.  "If you're not careful, I'll find myself believing I'm a Death Eater once again."

            Dumbledore stared at him blankly, and for a precious moment, Severus wondered if perhaps he'd gone too far.  Then the old man guffawed loudly and slapped his hand on the desk.  "Good Merlin!  Did I just hear what I think I heard?  Did Severus Snape, scourge of Hogwarts, just make a jest?  Quick, someone fetch me a Restorative Potion!"

            "There's no need to be facetious," Severus said snidely, though his lips were twitching strangely.  After a brief moment, the shared mirth passed and Severus sighed.  "You can't actually expect me to help her, Albus."  The headmaster had asked him, in a tone of voice that suggested he thought the request perfectly reasonable, to aid the bastard Malfoy in getting to know her nephew.  

            And Severus, in a rare display of subversion, had made his little joke.  But he was serious underneath the rare show of humor—he didn't want to help her.  

            "I do expect you to help her, Severus," Albus said calmly.

            "I can't!"  The Potions Master, frustrated beyond any telling, stood up and scissored long legs, pacing back and forth across the headmaster's office.  Night had passed and morning come since Lilith Benedict had rushed from his office, since Dea had left him alone again, as always.  "Surely you see why I cannot help her.  Look at her, Albus."

            Dumbledore's face grew darker, and when he stood up, his eyes were forbidding.  It was a look few ever saw, and Severus was one of those few.  "You cannot fear what is already gone unless you let yourself hang onto that part of yourself."  He came around the desk, forcing his employee to look at him.  "You came to me on a night many years ago, showing emotion I never thought you would show, and professed your connection with the Death Eaters was done."  He saw Severus's eyes flick to his arm, where there still rode the faintest scar of the Mark.  "Your connection here," Albus said, jabbing a long finger at Severus's head.  "And here," he jabbed at his heart.  "When I see that you fear the face of your enemy long past, it makes me wonder how gone that connection can truly be."

            "You fight unfairly, Albus."  For the pain was there, the sting of guilt spearing none too gently through Severus.  

            "I fight how I must," the older man barked.  "To save you from your own cowardice, and your own willful wallowing in the past."

            Severus's eyes snapped to Dumbledore's faded ones, and he smiled a bit nastily.  "My past, is it?  May I divest you of that particular notion, then?  Have you given any thought at all to the prospect that she will take him away from here?" _ Away from me, his brain insisted silently._

            Dumbledore sat again, unwilling to show his coworker—his friend—the weakness that seemed to pervade his bones of late.  "Severus, my dear friend, if you do well enough in helping her—in teaching her, as it were—she will see there is no need to take him away from here."

            And to that, Severus Snape had no answer.  With a terse "Very well," and a flaring of robes, he spun and exited the headmaster's office with haste.

            From the corner where she had stood, Dea stepped forward, her eyes wet with tears.  "When I suggested you nudge him into helping, I didn't mean it quite like that."

            "Nonsense, Miss Middlemarch," Albus spoke pleasantly.  "Severus is a great deal stronger than he appears to be.  He's greatly underestimated."  He turned then, regarding her over the tops of his glasses.  "Especially by you."

~~~

            She didn't know exactly what had waked her, but she knew something had.  She could also tell by the angle of the light—and that puffy, unrested feeling of her eyes—that it was ungodly early in the morning.  So she pried her eyes open one by one, a scream starting from her before she even realized it was making its way up through her lungs.

            Lilith Benedict wasn't really faint of heart, but seeing Severus Snape standing in her bedroom at the crack of dawn was a bit unsettling.

            "What in Merlin's name are you doing?" she asked, her voice shaking fiercely.  Belatedly she yanked the sheets up to her chin, her fair skin coloring as she remembered the woefully thin nightgown she'd brought with her.  It wasn't, she knew, exactly fitting to be wearing around anyone, much less a near-stranger of the opposite sex.

            _Since when did you start thinking of him as a man and not a monster? her addled brain yammered._

            "Well, what are you doing?" she demanded when he didn't immediately answer.

            "Would that I knew," he spoke, sounding more than a little bored.  But hadn't she, just for a moment, seen his eyes follow her hands as she'd pulled the sheet up.  "However, be that as it may, there's something you should see.  Other, that is, than a few more hours of sleep."

            The flush in her cheeks went from embarrassed to furious and she hissed out a breath, sneering in a manner, with a depth of emotion, that would have been far beyond her brother's capabilities.  "Whatever it is you have to show me, _Professor, I'm fairly certain it can wait a few minutes while I get decently dressed."_

            He raised an eyebrow, propping it to a nearly impossible height.  Why was it that he didn't expect her to have any backbone?  She'd broken down like a weakling… like a Hufflepuff… in his office the day before, and now she was treating him like a poorly behaved House Elf.

            _Women, he thought sardonically, but never in a million years would words so trite fall from his lips, if he could help it. _

            "Don't take your time," he said, turning on his heel and leaving her in the room.

            "Make your bed and lie in it," Lilith grumbled, whipping the sheets aside and pulling her only dress from its hanger.  "Apparently not for long enough to get any sleep."  The few hours she'd gotten, though, had refreshed her, and getting roused in such a rude manner had done what she'd not been able to do on her own—made her angry.  In anger, Lilith was righteous.  

            She was ready to take on the Potions Master.

~~~

            She walked up, glancing over her shoulder, with a mug of ever-present coffee between her hands, rolling it back and forth, back and forth, sending the steam wafting up to his nose.  

            Remus hated coffee.

            "Did you hear what those horrid Weasley twins said to me?" Dea asked, sounding shocked but still laughing.

            His response was immediate and genuine, his thin face breaking into a sparkling grin.  "No, but I'd love to know."  He looked over her shoulder to see the two twins, back to watch the game, wave jauntily, identical faces displaying identically mischievous grins.

            What Marauders they'd have made.

            "They asked me," she said, grabbing his chin and tilting his face back to her, "If we were planning on what they insisted on calling 'puppies'.  It was horrifying."  His grin morphed into uproarious laughter, and Dea clenched her teeth.

            Men.

            "Do you think they'll actually show?" she asked, trying to sway his mind from the Weasleys' jest.  She regretted, however, how it made Remus's face fall serious.

            He smiled far too rarely.            

            "I don't know, love," he said honestly.  "I know you want things to be peaceful, but you can't always have it, you know.  Some people weren't meant to be peaceful, and Snape isn't one of them."  He'd spent years himself trying to make the Potions Master more at ease, but to no avail.  Tense obligation had held them at a civil level, and toward the end, even that had deteriorated.  But for the woman in front of them, there was too little they had in common.

            "I don't know where to sit," she said, rapidly changing gears.  "Is it possible to sit right between the two?"

            "You can sit on the Gryffindor side," Remus said stubbornly, house pride prevailing.

            But of course, she sat in the middle, making him sit on the outer edge of the Gryffindor bleachers.  

            "Can I sit with you?" Hermione approached them hesitantly, a small smile on her face, her breath puffing out in the cool air.  "It's really no fun to sit by myself, and with Ron Keeping, Ginny Chasing, and Harry Seeking—" she shrugged.  "Well, it's just a bit lonely."  She started to open her mouth and say more as the players came out, zooming in the air above them, swooping, diving, warming up, but her mouth sagged open.  "Good heavens!" she said in a shocked little whisper, and those whispers were racing up and down the assembled crowd.

            Lilith Benedict had arrived.


	8. Games

            She was too busy arguing to notice the turned heads, the craned necks, the looks of surprise and horror that spread through the crowd.  

            "I'm suitably dressed," she insisted, shoving his thin hand away from her.  "I don't need the bloody cloak!"

            Severus shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as they stood at the foot of the bleachers.  "Your coat…" he said, taking a deep breath and trying to call upon patience that wasn't there.  "…is red."

            "I know perfectly well the color of my coat," Lilith said, stepping up into the bleachers to get his hand off her back.  Just yesterday the man had wanted to kill her, and today he was pushing her, nudging her, _touching her.  It made her edgy.  "I don't see what that has to do with anything."_

            With a hiss of frustration, Severus threw the cloak at her, forcing her to catch it; if she hadn't, it would have covered her head and shoulders completely.  "You're here to support someone, you halfwit, the least you can do is not wear the opposing team's colors."

            And as the players filled the sky above them, Lilith's mouth fell open and the only response she had was "Oh."  Sliding on the green cloak—and it really _was warmer than her coat—she looked around her and saw the sea of green and black on all sides of her.  It continued for a way on her left side, then tapered off into empty bleachers, then picked back up in red and gold.  Only one person sat in that stretch of empty bleachers, orange robes stubbornly bright against the dreary weather, the streak in her hair visible even from a distance._

            She stayed silent for the first part of the game, watching her nephew and the Potter boy fly at will around the stadium, their eyes sharp, their bodies tensed.  Severus sneaked glances over at her now and again, the short, sleek curls of her hair blowing around her face in the wind, her brown eyes intent on the sky.  

            And when the Snitch was released, Severus's attention was split between her and his Quidditch team.  She'd stayed silent and still for so long that the gasp just seemed to burst forth from her as Draco swooped down from the sky, dropping so quickly it looked like an accident.  Harry was trying a different tactic, sweeping around the outskirts of the stadium, spiraling his way down.

            "He's good!" she exclaimed, the surprise in her voice evident.  It was as though he was completely separate from the game—above his head, Ginny Weasley was handling the Quaffle with ease, heading toward the Slytherin Keeper.  No one in the game had eyes for the Seeker—but everyone in the stands watched the both of them.

            Draco and Harry spotted the Snitch at the same time, below Harry but above Draco, and Lilith pressed a hand to her mouth.

            It was dangerous and stupid and risky, she knew, but she wanted very badly for him to catch it.  He pulled up, eyes blazing, just as Harry flew down, executing a tight turn as he let the gravity pull his upper body away from the broom and to the Snitch.  In a split second, the game was over, the Snitch fluttering wildly in Harry's hand, and Draco had landed and dismounted.

            The game over, he walked away from the pitch, having no urge to remain.  

            "Good game!" Colin Creevey called after Draco, thinking nothing of it.  What he got in return for his niceties was a mouthful of curse words, none too quiet.  

            "Oy!  You kiss your mother with that mouth?"  Peter Plimpton, a Gryffindor first-year, asked, tugging on one prominent ear.  

            "Don't you remember?" Another student, a Ravenclaw this time, leaned lazily over the stands and watched Draco, whose retreat had slowed.  "He doesn't have a mother.  Apparently Hogwarts is an orphanage now."  Unfortunately, the pitch and stands acted like a large amphitheatre, and the acoustics were nearly perfect.  The exchange carried all too well.

            Lilith gasped and started to make her way down from the stands; Severus stayed her with a calm hand, knowing her presence would not help, especially not now.

             Draco turned slowly, his eyes cold beyond measure, and he started to speak in his own defense, started to make his way back to the blithering Ravenclaw who clearly wasn't smart enough to have been properly sorted into that house.

            And then Ginny Weasley stepped forward, and Draco stopped cold.

            "Stop it," she commanded the Ravenclaw tersely, sending the entire crowd into a hush.  "You've no idea what that must be like.  How'd it be if I started in on your mother, eh?"  The Ravenclaw flushed a dark, brick red, and he had absolutely no witty rejoinder for the clearly angry Gryffindor in front of him.

            Ginny met Ron's wide, disbelieving eyes, and cast them away quickly, looking for the young man she'd just defended.

            He was already gone.

~~~  
            "He's magnificent."  She couldn't seem to say anything else—couldn't really think of anything appropriate to say—as she walked back to the castle.  "That was what you wanted me to see, wasn't it?  How well he played.  How much he loves it."

            "I don't know what you were supposed to see," Severus said, wanting suddenly to be away from her.  He'd seen that speculative look in Dea's eyes and didn't care for it a bit.  He was quite through babysitting the Malfoy bastard.  "I was told to take you, and so I did."  

            "You follow orders well, then," Lilith spat back, cold inside and out after seeing her nephew's troubles on the pitch.  It was so hard for him, and likely had been from the very beginning.

            She supposed Malfoys were predisposed to unhappiness.

            "I trust you can find your way back to your room," Severus retorted, wanting to push her away from him.  He was awfully good at that, and at the moment, when all he wanted was a little time to think, solitude seemed best.

            Solitude was his choice.

            But after the fair-haired woman glared at him and swept into the castle, he was not to have his solitude.  Another shape, also slight, but brightly-robed and dark-haired, stepped to his side.

            "She has your cloak," Dea said thoughtfully.  "I suppose you'll have to get that back from her at some point."

            "Thank you for stating the obvious," Severus said through clenched teeth.  "And they say Ravenclaw intelligence is overrated."

            "I've found," Dea said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from outwardly laughing at this man, this poor, confused man whose buttons were so easy to push, "That whoever 'they' are, 'they' are most often incorrect."

            "Was there something you wanted, Dea?"  

            "Only to ask how things were with the Malfoy miss.  You seemed to be getting along, for a few moments, at least."  She'd watched them, and not covertly, through a good portion of the game.  They'd sat side by side, light and dark, night and day, their expressions of awe and attention nearly identical as they watched the only thing they had in common—Draco.

            "Ignoring someone—or even tolerating them— doesn't necessarily mean getting along with them," Severus said pointedly, arching a raven eyebrow.  "As you should well know."

            Though she knew he spoke of himself and Remus, she smiled brightly.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  No one can ignore me and my crass brand of American charm."  Then, suddenly, with no warning, the cheer fell away and she grasped Severus's arm, suddenly serious.  "She cares about him, Severus, as much as she can.  Don't automatically start judging and shoving just because it's your nature."  She saw him start as though shocked, and then he opened his mouth to speak, but she rolled her eyes and pressed a finger to his lips.  "Don't try to tell me it isn't.  It is, and well I should know.  Better than anyone, I should know that."  Shaking her head, she put her arms around him, her breath puffing out in the still-cool morning air.  "She's beautiful," she said, and tried to keep the tiny tinge of regret from her voice.

            "Meddling witch," Severus said, but it was said wonderingly as Dea walked away from him.

~~~

            It was Monday before she saw him again, and against her strongest inner protests, she was still embarrassed about what had happened on Saturday.  Had she really stuck up for a Malfoy?

            She'd been late, but that hadn't mattered—in mid-step in the corridor on her way to the "class," she'd simply been uprooted and transplanted into the classroom, right on time.  

            "One would think," Draco said coldly from the window where he sat, "That you would eventually realize you had to come here, whether you wanted to or not.  The Weasley wit is somewhat lacking."

            "I was on my way here," Ginny bit back, but didn't feel any heat in the words.  She felt sorry for him; she couldn't help it.  She knew he'd scorn her pity, turn it around on her and make her look the fool, but it was simply _there.  She'd grown up with family, extensive, emotional, unconditionally loving family, and this young man in front of her had been fundamentally alone.  _

            "Good for you," Draco said, keeping his eyes out the window.  What a humiliation the weekend had been, insult on top of injury on top of countless previous layers of each.  It was bad enough to lose the Quidditch match, but to have his blasted… "aunt" sitting out there was even worse.  There had been rumors and whispers and talking, and though no one ever spoke to "The Malfoy," he heard the whispers anyway.

            That gorgeous, drop-dead blonde in the stands was many things, according to the students of Hogwarts.  She was a reincarnation of Lucius, she was an evil (or eviler) twin.  She was a Succubus and a Squib, a Muggle-born, a glamour-cast witch with an ax to grind.

            Now Draco just had to figure who she _really was, and if it meant anything to him._

            "You played well this weekend," Ginny said, sitting down at a desk and taking out her homework.  She'd not meant to make an issue of it, but then she could feel those eyes on her, pinning her securely.  "What?"

            "You'd do well to wipe this weekend from your memory, Weasel."  Under his fair, translucent skin, Draco's cheeks burned red.  "Your pity is the last thing I need."

            "I don't doubt that," Ginny said, keeping her eyes down, away from his.  "What you need first and foremost is some family, someone to smack some bloody sense and manners into you now and again."  Unable to concentrate, she slammed her quill down, breaking it and spattering ink all over her parchment.  _Oh, well, _she thought.  _It's only Potions.  "Which, I note, you have family.  Now all you have to do is suck it up and accept it."  Pleased with her conclusion, she reached into her bag to dig out another quill, and though she could feel his eyes on her again, she didn't look. _

            She didn't see that he was actually considering her remark.


	9. Someone to Talk To

**Author's Note: All my apologies for the shortness of chapter; I'm working on several things, not to mention working and doing the whole "holiday thing."  Bear with me!  This is coming to a head, and soon… *gasp* to an end!!!**

            His sleep was fitful, as it always was, as it had been for as long as he could remember.  His childhood had been nearly nonexistent, stolen by his father's madness, commanded by his mother's weakness, ruled by his own confusion and hate.  For nearly twenty years, he had slept poorly, full of nightmares and fears. 

            His sleep at Hogwarts had always been different, however, marginally more peaceful.  Protected.  As much as he hated to admit it, it had been a sanctuary for the past six years.

            Now, however, the nightmares were back, the restlessness pursuant to his father's death and his aunt's arrival. 

            When he awoke with a gasp before dawn, cold sweat dripping down the sides of his face, beading on his chest and causing the undershirt he wore to stick to him, he wondered when things would be normal.

            Draco wondered if he would even recognize normal when it came to him. 

~~~

            "I want to talk to her."  

            He stood in his head of house's office, arms crossed negligently over his chest, eyebrow cocked lazily, even casually, but the statement was one he'd spent all night contemplating.  

            Draco was sick of everyone else making decisions in his life, and if there was one thing he could enjoy about being recently orphaned, it was a little freedom to make decisions for himself.

            Severus looked up from the essay he was currently grading—or, more to the point, slashing red ink all over; those Hufflepuffs were hopeless—and looked at his pupil.  "Let us not talk in ambiguities, shall we, Mr. Malfoy?"

            "Let us not be obstreperous, shall we, Professor Snape?" Draco retorted calmly.  "I wish to speak with Lilith Benedict."

            Severus templed his fingers and looked at Draco intently.  It was interesting, he thought, that the boy wanted to talk to his aunt at all, when Severus himself barely wanted to speak to her.

            _She's beautiful, Dea's voice insisted in his head._

            It would be nice if he didn't hear Dea's voice even when she wasn't there.

            "I'm sure that can be arranged," he said flatly.

            "And you're going to be there," Draco said, turning on his heel and beginning to pace the length of the dungeon office.  His tone was commanding, his hands clasped behind his back, and the whole thing gave Severus a nasty little jolt.

            It seemed Ms. Benedict wasn't the only Lucius look-alike in the Hogwarts vicinity.  

            And then Draco glanced up and to the side at his mentor, giving a crooked, cocky little smile, and the illusion was broken.  "I need a mediator."

            "I hardly think I'm the best choice for that, but I'm disinclined to deny you this one thing," Severus said honestly.  It had taken less time than he'd expected for Draco's curiosity to kick in.  He'd thought for certain the boy's stubbornness would hold out a bit, and was alternately pleased and disappointed that it hadn't.

            _You can't expect—or want—him to be just like you, Severus reminded himself, and with no small amount of pain, added, __He's not your son._

"Thank you," Draco said with genuine gratitude.  He'd eat a thousand Blast-Ended Skrewts before he'd admit it, but his stomach was tied in knots.

            The great Brat Prince was nervous.

~~~  
            It irritated her that he was the only one she really knew in the whole of Hogwarts.  It irritated her even more that she'd taken to looking for him when she made her rounds around the place, saying hi to those who would speak to her and merely smiling thinly at those who wouldn't.

            And Lilith hadn't caught a single glimpse of the Potions master yet today. 

            "Looking for someone?"  The voice, light and pleasant, nearly made Lilith jump three feet off the floor.  When the startled blonde turned to see who had spoken, she winced a little.

            Those orange robes were positively horrifying, even to a poor young woman who barely owned two sets of clothes.

            "Ah… no.  I'm just…"  _Lurking around like a complete lunatic.  "Looking around the building."  She shrugged in an oddly eloquent gesture.  "I could wander this place every day for a year and still find something new."  To Lilith's surprise, the streaky-haired American grinned understandingly._

            "I know just what you mean," Dea said agreeably.  "I just wanted to say hello.  It strikes me every woman could use another woman to talk to, no matter what the situation."

            Lilith smiled back, shaky but sweet.  "That's very kind of you, Miss Middlemarch.  I don't know what I'd ever need to talk about—"

            Not at all subtly or gently, Dea corralled the taller woman to an open area of the castle where narrow benches lined the halls and nudged her into one.  "First of all, it's Dea.  Never Amadea—" For only Remus called her that with any sort of consistency—"Never Miss Middlemarch, but Dea."  And that grin came again, propping up the scarred eyebrow and bringing dimples to her cheeks.  "And I thought you might want to talk about Severus."  At the other woman's guilty flush, Dea gave a silent cheer.  "He's a hard man to deal with."

            "I don't deal with him," Lilith insisted.  "I'm an assignment for him, and he's just the middle man for me."  But even as the words left her mouth, she felt bad for saying them.  It sounded so… harsh.

            "Hmmm," Dea said noncommittally.  "You've seen my husband, yes?  Tall, thin, graying?  Gorgeous?"  When the modest Malfoy offspring flushed and nodded again, Dea nodded, as well.  "I was a bit of an assignment for him, once upon a time."

            And as though a switch had been flipped, or a wand flicked, Dea saw the cold angles of class—inherited, whether the woman wanted to admit it or not—carve into Lilith's face as the woman pulled her chin into the air.  "Imply whatever you'd like, Miss Middlemarch, but I'm here for one thing and one thing alone."

            "Your nephew," Dea said, flapping a hand.  Sometimes, really, being nosy was more work than one would expect.  "However, the fact remains that if you need an ear to listen…"  She trailed off then, offering her own shrug.  She stood then, but before walking away, she glanced at the ragged hem of Lilith's dress.

            With a flick of her wand, Dea had the hem—and the dress—looking like new again. 

            She left Lilith gaping at her clothes and wondering just what in Merlin's name she'd gotten herself into.

~~~  
            "You have my gratitude."  Politeness came naturally to Remus most of the time, but he'd admit to genuinely needing to work at it when it came to these particular situations.

            "Yes, well, you have my potion, Lupin, so I suppose that puts us even," Severus said dryly, the impending appointment with aunt and nephew weighing heavily on his mind.  The last thing he needed was Lupin, he who had proven himself the 'better man,' loafing about in his office and breathing his werewolvey breath all over everything.

            Damn the man for looking fifty times happier and better than when he'd left months ago with Dea.

            Remus felt his jaw clench and his shoulders tense up; he was afraid that reaction was completely unavoidable.  Severus Snape had been a combative git from the very beginning.  What reason had he to change now?

            "I'll just get…"  He started to say 'out of your way' and then thought of an American phrase he'd heard Amadea use.  "Out of your hair."  The very image had him snorting back laughter.

            Judging from the black look on Snape's face, he didn't find it amusing.

            "No big surprise," Remus muttered.  "I'll show myself out."  He didn't make it out the door however, for upon opening it, he saw the two of them, so similar, so dissimilar, standing face-to-face, voices silent and eyes wide as they contemplated one another.

            Neither Lilith nor Draco moved an inch, and neither seemed to notice Remus watching them, or Severus watching from behind him.  They merely watched one another as though waiting for a move, as though memorizing the planes of one another's faces.  

            "Severus," Remus said carefully, looking over his shoulder at his classmate, "I think you have visitors."


	10. When At Last We Meet

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Reformatting your hard drive sucks.  I know you probably all know this fact, but I want to reiterate it.  This week I had to start a new job full-time and at the same time, reformat my hard drive.  So, I apologize for the wait.  Happy reading!**

            What did one say in these situations? What were the words to give to a relative you'd never known, the only blood relative you had left? What were the words to give to an orphan of unfit parents, a young man stuck between childhood and adulthood and judged by all his peers?

            "I'm sorry" seemed awfully weak, and even if it had been a good choice, Lilith wasn't certain she could have pried her cold lips apart to say it.

            He was a beautiful boy, even more so close up than from afar, and the unfairness of that one fact made Lilith ache. Anyone with so much beauty should have had a charmed life instead of a cursed one.  

            Though the same could have been said for her, she never would have applied the same logic to herself.

            She really _didn't look like Father, Draco thought, his silver eyes wide as he stared at her.  It was more than just the eye color and the hair length.  There were other things, other evidences, that made all the difference in the world between the siblings.  The look in her eyes that said she knew love, not only for others but for herself, as well.  She loved and had been loved, and likely, Draco thought with a shallow inward sneer, thought she loved him._

            Well, that was a handful and a half of Dungbombs, as far as he was concerned.

            "Excuse me," Remus interjected, easing his slim body between the two relatives purposefully, breaking the staid gaze the two shared.  "I was just on my way out."

            _Half-breed, Draco thought reflexively, and winced.  That particular gem was a thought of his father's ilk, the kind that had been drilled into the child Draco with an insistence so mad and fierce it was captivating.  But the reflex was weak and easily beaten, and he stepped back to let the ex-Professor through, though he said nothing._

            "Pardon," Lilith muttered, casting her eyes to the side and slipping into Severus's office.  She kept her eyes away from his, afraid for a moment the emotion of the situation would betray her.  She'd heard things in her days at Hogwarts, things about the mind-reading Potions master with a bent for favoritism.  The last thing she wanted was for him to read her mind and, horror of all horrors, hear what she thought of him, or how often.

            _Must you behave like a juvenile? she asked herself, and though it didn't immediately occur to her, that snide inner voice sounded a great deal like Severus Snape._

            As Draco followed her into the dungeon office, Severus kept his long, thin fingers curled into tight, pale fists on his desk.  He hadn't the slightest how to help them, hadn't ever really had the slightest idea how to help Draco, no matter how much he'd wanted to.  The son of his peer, the son of his enemy, the son of a man who had drawn Severus into the darkest depths of Severus's own soul—Draco had always been just beyond Severus's reach.

            Severus had thought more than once that saving Draco might be his own salvation.

            Now he just cared too much _not _to save the boy.  

            _How ironic, he thought, crabbily gesturing each of them into chairs.  He hadn't yet thought how to start, but it didn't matter—Draco had received the Malfoy knack for taking a situation and making it his own._

            "I don't know you," he said definitely, his eyes narrowed into metallic slits.  "So, all things considered, I'd say you get to start with the explaining."

            Lilith leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, arching a pale eyebrow at her nephew, mirroring his facial expression magnificently.  "My name is Lilith Benedict.  My mother was a witch named Olive Benedict who never stayed put in one place for very long.  My father was a wizard named Balthasar Malfoy.  I'd wager you've heard the name before?" she asked, completing the illusion by carrying over his mocking tone.

            His face flushed red and he leaned forward as though shoved into movement by her goading.  "Continue," he said through clenched teeth, and Severus could tell the adult façade was going to fade very soon, indeed.  

            "I met my father once, and met your father at the same time, and neither one seemed very inclined to admit I even existed."  Hearing the cold tones of her own voice, Lilith sighed and rubbed a thin hand over tired eyes.  She hadn't meant to do it like this, hadn't meant to let him put her on the defensive.  This wasn't the way to start things.  

            Of course, ideally, the way to start things wouldn't have been bare weeks after the boy had been orphaned.  

            "You're the only family I've left," she said softly, trying a different approach.  This Lilith was honest, was true.  Her eyes were nakedly pleading, and her emotions were obvious.  

            _Don't do that, Severus thought, leaning forward warningly.  A wounded animal would strike out at the hand which tried to help it, and a wounded young man would do no differently._

            Severus had stricken out at plenty of helpers in his life, and he wasn't keen to see Draco do the same.

            "Do you expect me to return that sentiment?" Draco asked, rolling his eyes and throwing a glance at Severus before returning his attention to Lilith.  This had been a bad idea—a bad idea, indeed.  She was looking at him—

            Like his mother used to, tender and loving, caring, wanting to keep him shielded from the ugliness later to come.

            He stood, towering over her as she sat, and looked down at her, tamping down the constrictive feeling around his heart.  "In case you've not noticed, Miss Benedict, family doesn't mean a great deal to Malfoys, so you may as well try something different."

            "Draco," Severus said sharply, his onyx eyes flashing.  "Bear in mind you are the one who requested this… reunion."

            When his pupil turned those cold slate eyes on him, Severus had to fight the urge to look away.  What he saw there, for the briefest flicker, was contempt.  

            "Ohhhh," Draco said, smirking mightily and feeling the sting of betrayal pierce through him.  This man was supposed to defend him.  No matter what the woman sitting before them both said, Severus was the closest thing Draco had to family, and now that family was turning his back.  "I believe the professor must have a bit of a yen for Auntie, eh?"  His sneer cracked, his lips trembled a bit, but he kept his eyes forthrightly on Severus's as his aunt gasped behind him.  "You know, _Snape," he spat the name nastily, "Goyle and Crabbe always said you were more my father's servant than Voldemort's.  Perhaps we see why now."_

            Severus's face paled more than usual and he stood with two hands pressed to his desk.  Now it was he who towered over Draco, and when he spoke, his voice held the tone usually reserved for a hopelessly slow Hufflepuff.  "I'll not rise to your bait, Draco.  You think I've not endured things far worse than the ill-aimed taunts of a child, you're sadly mistaken."

            "Stop this!" Lilith had stayed silent more of necessity than choice; her voice had backed up in her throat, her breath had backed up in her lungs when the two had faced down, coldness to coldness in their anger.  

            She'd rather have died than cause more pain in the life of this beautiful boy, and the truth showed itself with a face as ugly as any troll.  

            She should not have come to Hogwarts.

            "You're right, Professor," Draco said, feeling the panic start to rise up in him.  "I was sadly mistaken."  He turned and ran out of the office, abandoning the last of his composure.

            If there'd been a Muggle shrink on hand, they'd have started screaming 'fear of intimacy.'

            As it was, an orphan of the last war had no wish for family, as family had been the bane of his existence.  

            "That went poorly," Severus said dryly, and when he looked at the woman in front of him, her tears were mirrored in his heart.  

            How could it ever be fair, he wondered, to come close to losing someone, to see a child in danger, to see them removed from the immediate danger, and to lose them anyway?

            When would he ever stop losing what he had found?


	11. Runaway

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  I am nothing but apologetic for the delay in this story.  I never put it down, and it's always been in the back of my mind, but between computer troubles, family illness, work, and writer's block, I've been unable to commit to the story the way I fully intended to.  Thanks to everyone for the interest, and I'm going to keep on trucking… all my apologies once again, but I'm just not one of those people who will post something just to post it—it has to really come along naturally.

            "I should never have come."  Her voice was low, scored raw with the emotions wrung from her.  For a cynic—and she considered herself such—she had been idiotically idealistic about her nephew.  In him, Lilith had seen a family member in pain, this family member not too late to save.

            How many different examples did she really need to prove to her the past was done with, and nothing could change that?

            Draco was _not _her mother, and he surely wasn't his father.  Severus was no longer a Death Eater, and Lilith herself was no longer a timid orphan.

            Things inevitably changed.

            And so she made her statement, casting bloodshot eyes untouched by any glamour to Severus's face.

            He let out a huffed breath, the closest he'd come to laughing, even in derision.  "Perhaps you shouldn't have, but the fact remains, you have.   What's done is done and can't be changed."  He knew no other way to face her, to face her pain, but with facts.  

            Her eyes widened at his statement, so closely had it resembled her own thoughts.  Perhaps she _had _been chiding herself similarly, but she didn't need to hear it from him, of all people.  Some help _he'd _been with her nephew, for as well as the Potions Master claimed to know the boy.  "What's done is done?" she echoed, infusing her voice with sarcasm.  "You seem to be doing _very _well with that particular concept, Professor Snape."  She thought of Amadea, of the American witch's pretty, animated face, and caught back a wayward—and totally inappropriate—sigh.  "You of all people seem more preoccupied with the past than most."

            Lilith could actually _see _him close himself off from her, his moment of defense for her suddenly distant, at home once more with the misery he so carefully clutched to himself, all the transgressions of his past he tortured himself with.  She may have known him for only a short while, but Lilith recognized the sight of someone who regularly tortured themselves with memories.

            Like recognized like.

            "You, Miss Benedict, would do well to keep your mind on your own shortcomings," Severus said tightly, his words quiet and economical.  "Numerous and weighty as they are."

            But she did not retreat, as he had expected her to.  No, of all moments for her to show her occasional unbending spine, she had to choose this one to draw the firm chin into the air, her eyes now the color of brittle amber, cold and ancient.  "You can't possibly mean to imply this is my fault."  If anyone was going to blame her, dammit, it would be _her.  _She at least had that privilege, didn't she?

            It was on the tip of his tongue, sharp and acerbic, to say "yes."  But he found he couldn't, no matter how he wanted to.  Who were these women he couldn't lie to, couldn't help but shelter, at least a little?  First Dea, arrived so many years ago, then gone, then back, then gone again… and now this one, this mysterious stranger with her many sides and her familiar face.  And what did it really matter?  He was simply going mad, but he spoke the truth anyway.  "No, it isn't your fault.  Family or no, you know him less than I, and I knew how he would react.  I goaded him instead of guiding him."  He winced at the alliteration of it, disgusted at his own triteness.

            Some days he very nearly wished for the comfort of silence, when no one spoke to him because they feared him.  Being feared, Severus Snape judged, meant being left in peace at least now and again.

            There seemed to be nothing else to say but for her to ask the obvious.  "Will he return?"

            And it was not Severus who answered her, but a voice much older, much wiser, and much wearier.  "We do not know," Albus said, entering the dungeon office slightly stooped over, the low doorways and heavy matters combining to make a nearly unbearable onus.  He was tired, and he, too, had been wounded during the war.  He had lost more students than he cared to count, more bright and shining pupils than would ever be considered fair.   

            He was tired of losing students, and what was more, he was just plain tired.  It was time for others to take up some of the burden, starting with the two people in front of him.

            "You call yourselves short-sighted, thoughtless, and I will not argue," Albus said pedagogically, sweeping his arm in a wide arc.  "You needed only to do this one thing for him, to swallow his pride and answer his questions.  You _knew _how he would behave.  You of all people, Severus, know what it is to push away that which you fear." 

            Severus thought of Dea, as did Lilith, but neither the Potions professor nor the woman beside him missed the long, pointed look which the headmaster gave her. 

            "He has left the grounds," Albus said with an air of finality.  "We have taken measures to find him, but the only sure measure is just to wait."

            Lilith stood, eyes wide.  "Wait?  No, we will not wait.  How could he have left so quickly?  How could he have left already?" she repeated, turning her eyes to Severus.  He painted the glance with his own guilt, interpreting it as _You__ were supposed to watch out for him, that's what you said you'd do. _

But because Severus could not utter falsely hopeful words, he said nothing.

            And they waited.

            She bit her lip as she looked over her shoulder at the people in the doorway, wondering why they persisted in this farce of a class.

            Ginny sat down in the classroom she'd shared with Draco several times, knowing in her heart he was not there, pondering in her mind why anyone would think otherwise.  The spell summoning him to the classroom would only work if he was on the grounds, and since he'd been gone for two days, Ginny highly doubted he was still around.

            Like he'd show up voluntarily, Ginny snorted derisively as Dumbledore shut the heavy door behind her, trying to complete the image of the classroom as it always was.  Locked door, captive students, big windows.

            What a farce.  He'd finally escaped, and Ginny couldn't altogether say she blamed him.

            "They're watching you."

            The voice was low, mysteriously bouncing off the walls of the classroom and rendering the hiding spot of the speaker indeterminate.  Her breath ricocheting from her lungs and up to her windpipe, Ginny looked frantically around the spacious classroom. 

            For a moment, he'd sounded just like Tom.

            "Don't look around like a bleeding ninny," he said, and this was pure Draco, exasperated and annoyed with the Weasley duchess.  "They're watching you, so keep your eyes to your parchment, Weasley."


End file.
